


Prohibition

by residualaffection



Series: Transmutation [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: 1920s, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - 1920s, Alternate Universe - Historical, Angst, F/M, Gen, Gun Violence, I Tried, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-25
Updated: 2013-12-25
Packaged: 2018-01-06 01:22:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1100763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/residualaffection/pseuds/residualaffection
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sif and Loki cause trouble in a speakeasy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Prohibition

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Anayim](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anayim/gifts).



> Now that everything's revealed, I can say that this was a pinch hit written very quickly and on _very_ little sleep and so there are a lot of things I'd really have liked to clean up before publishing but I just ran out of time. I may go back in and work on it still, since while it's far from perfect it takes place in an AU I'm tentatively planning to write more of, believe it or not.

The song they'd come out to dance to had ended three circuits of the room ago. They hadn't noticed, engrossed in conversation about the same things as always: how to make the act smoother, bigger, more convincing, _better_. It was a discussion they had once a week at least but it never grew old. They were always searching for the edge that would keep them ahead of competitors, dreaming up bigger illusions, more dangerous escapes. Things had run well lately, audiences were growing, they'd already booked the next few shows, but that didn't stop them. There was always more to be done, something new in the works, painstakingly developed and refined and rehearsed before they'd put it on the stage. 

They'd talked about the music, too, the band that apparently intended on playing endless foxtrot numbers, and commented on those around them, taking bets on when they'd get fed up and return to the bar, or their seats. And then started guessing what secrets each might reveal if Loki were to hypnotize them, their whispered suggestions growing more and more ridiculous until Sif could barely keep a straight face and insisted they stop lest she crush someone's toes. That Loki's were the nearest potential victims swayed him despite his skepticism, and they spun and bounced through another uptempo number in warm silence, which continued when the music finally shifted and they found themselves waltzing. 

It could hardly be more different from dancing with Thor, she thought, and not just because the elder Blake was deathly bored by waltzes. With him everything was big and fast, together they were a whirlwind of skill and athleticism and daring set to a jazz rhythm, never content until they were both breathless and had chanced an ugly fall at least twice. It was as close to exhilaration as either of them came anymore, unless it was chained upside-down in a glass tank. They'd terrorized the floor for a while earlier and come up red-faced and laughing before Thor had begged off to get some extra rehearsing in and insisted Loki take his place. Which he'd done, hand in hers as cool and dry as his tone when he gave in to Thor's badgering.

If Thor was power and boldness Loki was precision and grace and it took no less skill to match him - perhaps more, as Sif too was more given to flinging herself through the air than languid arcs across the floor. With Thor she could predict his every move, no matter how unlikely or outlandish. Just by watching his eyes, feeling how he moved, she would know his plan a moment before he put it into action, so accustomed were they to each other, so alike. With Loki it was always a surprise, no matter how closely she focused he remained a mystery to her and it was all she could do to match him. But when it came together, like tonight, she could have sworn they glided about the room without touching the ground. 

It might have been awkward, this long stretch without speaking and the nearness. Between the steps and the tight crowd packed around them she could feel him almost against her, the sequins on her dress catching against his lapels. Did she imagine he pressed her closer, or was it just to avoid another couple? Almost cheek to cheek as they spun she watched his throat work around a swallow, almost saw the quick beat of his pulse in the big vein beneath pale skin. How could he look so calm and keep that impassive expression when his heart thumped so fast? She wondered what it would feel like under her thumb, whether it would be warm when his hands never were. If she brushed it she imagined she'd feel it leap beneath her touch, if she just set her lips just there he--. 

She caught herself and closed her eyes for a moment before forcing them wide, taking in the room, noting each person nearby, each set of eyes. She made them each audience members in her mind, practicing the cold reading Loki had taught her, picking out their stories from subtle details. She was playing an always-exciting game of 'mistress or daughter?' when her partner lifted his chin and indicated someone behind Sif, rotating that she might look over his shoulder.

"Look, it's the fellow from the show. The one who volunteered and then--,"

"Talked about his mistress while his wife was in the audience?" Sif cast a dry look up at Loki as he smirked, and kept her voice low as the man in question and his date (no doubt the mistress in question) danced nearer. "Yes, that's him. There's no fun in playing with someone whose secret you've already uncovered." 

"True," Loki agreed, "While I'm sure we could ferret out another if we chose, let's… tryyy…." He spun them around and through the crowd, and despite distraction they stepped in perfect harmony, feet quick but movements smooth. The same unfortunately could not be said for everyone else on the crowded little dance floor and a moment later Sif was jostled and cool liquid splashed down her arm and across the front of her dress. 

She didn't quite stop short in horror but kept dancing, a step or two at first on instinct and because it seemed a minor matter, surely the perpetrator would just apologize and they could all carry on enjoying themselves. She did turn to see where it had come from, in anticipation of that apology as the telltale scent of the bar's bathtub gin assaulted her nostrils. The woman in the couple behind her had a now-empty glass in her hand but simply looked at the stain across Sif's chest and said nothing, turning away to mumble something to her partner. They did stop then, Loki brushing at the front of his suit though it remained dry. 

"Pardon me," Sif said, reaching out to set a hand on the other woman's arm, the words polite but her tone less so, annoyance creeping in, "You've spilled your drink all over me."

The couple stopped dancing and both turned to look at Sif and her hand as if it was something dead lobbed into their laps. Of course it was the man from earlier, the one Loki had so embarrassed at the show, and he recognized the tall magician immediately. "You!" he sneered, already going red in the face above his too-tight collar, "You limey little bastard, you and your dame here had better clear out! You know what kinda trouble you caused me?"

Sif scoffed. "It's hardly our fault you volunteered to be hypnotized knowing you were keeping another woman secret from your wife. We made it very clear from the beginning how the hypnosis worked. If you cannot manage loyalty at least try for some common sense. Now, about that drink?" Loki lifted a brow in silence beside her.

"Yeah, how about that? Looks like you owe my girl another. She'll take a Gibson, two onions." The woman on his arm simpered and smirked, looking Sif up and down before wiggling her fingers. "Run along now. I like them cold."

"Excuse me?" Loki shifted, a hand settling on Sif's elbow in subtle warning, already more than familiar with her temper. It might have worked had a man not danced past with a full glass just dangling from his hand. Before she had time to think it through, let alone for Loki to stop her, Sif had plucked it out of his grasp and flung its contents. Luckily with man and mistress so close together, she didn't even have to choose which face to coat in -- from the smell of it -- rather nice rum. "Have some Bacardi," she said, dropping the glass into the hand of a bewildered bystander, "On the house."

That would have been the end of it, at least as far as she was concerned, ready to turn on a heel and storm out and leave them squawking and sputtering but even. But the man reached with thick, heavy fingers for her neck, growling a curse. Sif heard Loki murmur, "Oh bugger," beneath his breath as it happened, as she whirled and slammed a fist into her assailant's unsuspecting face. He yowled and stumbled back a step, in surprise as much as in pain; Sif hit hard but judging from the state of his nose (which she hadn't touched) this was a man no stranger to getting socked in the jaw. 

Loki caught him with a hand behind his shoulder and a pat on the chest before the man could careen backwards into a waiter. "Alright, alright, let's just all calm down now and go on our ways, shall we?" 

The man shook him off angrily and lunged back toward Sif, who stood by, unimpressed by his rage or his resilience. Until he reached inside his jacket, snarling, "You little bitch, anyone lays a hand on me eats lead and no exceptions! I'm gonna--" he stopped, again caught off guard as his hand came out empty, and he felt around his holster, patting his side. His total confusion lasted only until Loki held up a gun casually in the air, spinning the chamber and clicking it back into place with a lazy flick of his wrist. 

"Were you looking for this?"

"What the-- how'd you-- I HATE MAGICIANS! I'll shoot the lot of you! Stinkin' thieves! Give me back my gun!"

People close around them had stopped to gawk about the time Sif flung a drink, and more when she'd thrown a punch, and now the word 'gun' caught ears like only 'fire' could. A woman nearby screamed, someone shouted, "He's got a gun!" and the club exploded into chaos as a good quarter of the male patrons suddenly produced guns of their own. Everyone wheeled about in panic or wariness, the hue and cry so general now that no one was quite sure what the threat was or where it was coming from. It only took a few seconds for one of the armed men to recognize another as a rival, and then before Loki and Sif had even finished turning to give each other matching _what have we done?_ looks, the place exploded into gunfire.

They dove beneath a table, or at least they must have, because abruptly Sif was on the ground. Loki moved around her, about to scramble out and join the fleeing crowd but for a moment Sif just sat, feeling mud beneath her, mixed with blood on her face, warm and sticky, dripping like molasses down her cheek. She could hear the whistling of shells overhead, the constant booming barrage of the guns, screams and moans and the sick wet rattle of dying men struggling for a last breath as she fought for her own against the gas filling her lungs, choking her as surely as a hand around her throat and she was stuck caught on a wire and she couldn't shake free even as she shook and shook and

"Sif, Sif, Sif! SIF!" Loki's voice low and urgent in her ear and then his face before hers, those big blue eyes wide with concern, an unfamiliar expression on his face. He was shaking her, with a hand on her shoulder and another on her face, first combing through her hair, pressing at her hairline and then strangely tender in the gentle way he stroked his thumb across her cheek, back and forth. She tried to blink him away, eyes shut tight, but he was still there when she looked again, more and more there by the second and when she reached she could feel his collar under her hand, his throat, skin as cool as she remembered even though she could hear him panting for air. No, that was her. 

She held her breath and the sudden quiet confirmed it so she let the next one out slowly and found the vise-grip around her lungs was easing. She inhaled carefully once more and saw the floor beneath her, the rich pattern of the oriental rug, Loki crouched almost in her lap with his precious jacket dusty and his tie crooked, the fringed tablecloth concealing them, and just above glass shattering and men cursing and shouting. 

"You are fine, Sif," Loki was saying, his voice quiet and low, "We are here in the club, I am here, you are fine, we will be fine, we will get out of this." She couldn't tell how long he'd been repeating that litany, but from the worry in his eyes she guessed more than once. She gave her head a little shake, and swallowed, lifting a hand to his arm in the air between them. "I am fine," she said beneath another heavy breath. She gave his wrist a squeeze and then realized her other hand was on his throat, thumb stroking his pulse point, and dropped it. 

"Sorry," she said, "I'm sorry. I don't know what-- I'm fine. Good lord, we've started a gang war."

He smiled, which was all the sign Sif needed that she'd scared him. "I think we may have." His hands lingered a moment, a pleasant weight on her shoulder and jaw, but finally he drew them back. But remained close, as speaking in each other's ears was about the only way they could be heard over the racket. 

"I don't even like this dress," Sif grumbled and Loki let out a surprised huff of a laugh. She looked over with a quick flash of a grin, and then gestured vaguely, "How long was I---?"

"A couple minutes? Not long, but I think most everyone else has fled."

"Sounds like it," Sif agreed, "So we can't just slip out with the crowd, damn." She took another deep breath, and pressed a hand to her face, only to startle when she felt blood drying on her forehead and temple. "What--?"

"It's just a graze," Loki said, "I checked. I think a piece of glass nicked you or something. You know how head wounds bleed."

"Even the tiniest thing looks like death," she agreed. "So, any brilliant escape plans?"

"We could perhaps wait it out," Loki suggested. She licked her thumb and tried to clean the worst of the blood, glancing at him out the corner of her eye to find he was still watching her warily, as if he expected a relapse at any moment.

"Maybe," Sif shifted into a crouch, head cocked as she focused. The battle didn't sound like it had slowed at all, even with her ears ringing she could make out at least a dozen different weapons. "Maybe they'll run out of rounds or all kill each other and then we can walk out."

"That's my hope," Loki admitted. 

Of course having spoken it aloud it promptly came untrue, as heavy footsteps came near and a man careened back into their table, knocking it onto its side. They remained behind it, at least, but even that became a precarious position as bullets thudded into the other side, cracking the wood.

"Bloody Tommy guns! Where do they even--!" Sif was up from her knees, feet beneath her as she gestured at the next table over, "Quick, we had better--."

Loki gave a quick nod and off they took, ducked low, half running half crawling to the next table standing, sliding beneath it. They got all of three seconds reprieve before there was a shout and another round of gunfire sliced through the floor towards them, forcing them to scramble back to the far corner of the table, curled together with feet drawn up in as little space as possible as bullets plowed into the floor where they had just been.

"We can't stay here," Loki breathed. He didn't need to be any louder than that, lips so near Sif's ear she could feel them moving. 

She gave the tiniest of nods, unreasonably conscious of all the places they were pressed together, including-- "Please tell me you kept that gun."

"I did." He squirmed a hand between them, knuckles dragging down her spine, and she arched to give him more space to draw the weapon out, doing her best to ignore all the _other_ places that _this_ contortion now brought into contact. "Here," he said, tugging it free, "Six shots. Shall I, or-- can you-- do you want to?" He stopped with an awkward press of his lips and offered her the gun, and Sif held up a hand before them both, watching a moment. Finding it steady she took the revolver and settled the grip in her hand, opening and closing her fingers around it, testing the weight and the balance. 

"Right," she said, "Very well. We're going to make a run for the bar, and from there the back door. I'll cover you. Six shots is--." She rubbed at her brow and let out a little chuckle, then shook her head. "We can do this. On three."

She drew apart from Loki as quietly as possible, leaned clear and lifted her hand to count down. When her third finger touched her palm she darted out, flipping the table onto it's side as a barrier. It was too heavy to drag along with them but she perched behind it, letting the first barrage come as she picked out her shots. "Now," she mouthed, giving Loki a hand signal as she peeked up over the table. He made a run for it, bent almost double but moving fast, and she squeezed off careful shots, one after another as adversaries appeared and took aim at Loki's fleeing back. He careened around and behind the big marble-topped bar and disappeared out of her sight for a moment as she ducked back down just in time to avoid a hail of lead. He peeked around the bar's corner to look at her, giving a thumbs up and she replied by holding up two fingers and then sending the gun skidding across the floor to him. He grabbed it up, gave her a silent count of three, and then it was Sif's turn. 

She took off at a sprint towards him, heels clacking loudly against the floor. She stumbled off balance and felt a sharp, familiar burn in one arm, and flung herself headfirst the rest of the way, tumbling over Loki's legs to come to rest behind the bar.

"Sif, your arm," he said, nodding towards it, and she looked down without surprise. Loki was reaching for his throat, loosening his tie, and she almost laughed at the look on his face in the split-second before he held it out, offering, "Turn this way. Let me tie that up before you bleed all over the floor." 

"We're out of bullets, aren't we?" Sif turned, presenting her arm. She grit her teeth and watched him work as he wound the tie around it and tied a knot, tight enough to slow the bleeding without cutting off feeling. She cut him a quick twist of a crooked smile, "Nice work. Where'd you learn that?"

He snorted. "A very foolish nurse I knew once."

She bumped him with her shoulder and prompted, "Bullets?"

He shook his head. "Out."

They were sadly alone in that regard, as the gunfight continued to rage around club. Much of it wasn't directed their way, but enough shots pounded into the bar at their backs to make escape urgent - and unlikely.

Sif nodded, and then again. "Well. Alright. Let's see. You don't happen to have anything up your sleeves tonight, do you?"

Loki looked appalled. "Sif, this jacket is-- actually." He stopped short and tugged it open, rooting around in interior pockets and finally coming up with a little paper packet twisted at both ends. "Smoke powder," he said, "I'd forgotten I wore this at the New Year."

"The purple stuff?" Sif almost chuckled, but nodded, "Good. Alright, good, that is useful. And let's see. If we can find a couple bottles they haven't broken yet-- I'd prefer not to risk a fire by lighting them, but maybe with the smoke just the crashing would be enough?"

"Really? You're concerned about a fire?"

"Loki, there are other floors above us. Businesses, flats…?"

"And down here, our lives."

"We can do this without risking the entire building," Sif insisted. For a moment they looked at each other, two angular jaws set in stubborn determination. Though Sif was not at all certain it was true they could escape without firebombs, it was Loki who blinked first.

He rolled his eyes, head shaking. "Very well, we will try it your way. But I am making one, and if it comes to us or them I will use it. After all we have survived I am not allowing you to throw away your life - or mine - in a bloody speakeasy." 

"Fine," Sif replied, "So, here is what we do." 

They huddled close, bullets raining debris down on them as Sif laid out her plan in hurried whispers and fingertip-drawn diagrams on the floor, now covered in a light layer of dust and fallen plaster. It didn't take much simple as it was, their options being so few, but she found plotting it out for Loki in detail comforting somehow. He chimed in at each turn, with questions and minute adjustments, but there was little debate to be had and they soon broke apart. Gathering up the required materials was a matter of seconds as well given how rapidly the place had been abandoned, bottles, rags, matches, and knives all close at hand behind the bar. They made ready in rapid silence and then found themselves sitting poised, shoulder to shoulder, the moment near at hand.

Sif took a breath and let it out more quickly than she'd planned, a short burst of air that puffed out her cheeks. She turned her head to look at Loki and found him already facing her. They couldn't afford a moment but stared at each other for one anyway, hazel eyes fixed on glacial blue, something she didn't want to name tightening inside Sif's chest. She'd faced death before. Likely death, even, and with good men at her side, men she loved. Never quite so unexpectedly, or for quite so little a reason, and she told herself that that was the difference today. 

But even so she found her voice wasn't quite steady when she said, "Well. Here we go." That Loki's gaze had dropped to her lips did not help because now she was looking at his, thin and pale as they were, the lower one caught for a second between his teeth and then licked brighter by the tip of his tongue. She swallowed, and found she was leaning, or he was leaning? Somehow they were close enough she could feel his breath on her cheek and she stared down at his open collar, the pale vee of skin so rarely exposed at the hollow of his throat and just below. He licked his lips again and when he closed the distance between them she allowed herself to stop believing they had any chance of survival. Just for a moment she let go of hope and pressed her mouth back to his, clung to a kiss full of a desperate, hungry longing she had worked so hard to forget.

Gunfire startled them apart as surely as it had shoved them together and Sif drew back with a tremble, fist opened and closed as a tremor worked its way out of her. It was harder to pull her gaze away than it had been her mouth, drinking in the sight of him, scuffed and messy and poised for action. She had to shut her eyes to turn her head, but her voice was steady. "One. Two."

On three they went. In a cloud of black and purple smoke they sprinted for the door, Sif first and Loki behind, flinging bottles blindly as they went. Glass crashed and men shouted and bullets whizzed past them so close Sif could scarcely believe it when they crashed into the exit and tumbled out into the alley. 

The relative quiet of normal city noise was surreal, even more of a shock than the fresh air that whipped past them, the brisk wind that chilled them to the bone in a moment. But shouts followed them out and feet pounded towards the door at their backs and they took off at a limping run. Down the block and around a corner and then another. Limited outlets made pursuit easy, and the shouts and threats echoed between buildings and drove them on until Loki pulled up, teeth grit over an angry noise. 

"Loki, you've been shot." Somehow Sif had not noticed in the commotion of their escape, the blood so dark on black trousers.

"I am aware of that," he growled, "But there is nothing for it but to keep moving."

"Do you need--" Sif lifted an arm in offer but he brushed it away with a shake of his head and moved stiffly onward as she trotted anxiously beside. "Loki we cannot outrun them like this," she said after another block only decreased their meagre lead, "We must hide."

"Where?" he hissed, gesturing around at locked doors, high windows, bare corners. 

"I don't know! Somewhere!" Sif's voice dropped lower still as footsteps gained audibly, and she looked about frantically. "After all this--!" At the last second she grabbed Loki by the arm and dragged him into the shadows. Even poorly lit as this area was they weren't nearly dark enough to conceal their presence and he was about to snarl just that when Sif wrapped an arm about his neck and a leg about his hips and drew him back against the wall with her, pulling his head down to her. 

Twined together they waited, pressed flush from chest to knee, breath mingling warm and quick in the brief space between their mouths. The footsteps grew nearer by the second and Sif shivered against him, nerves buzzing as they waited. She worked her hand into his hair, grasped at his back, and he rocked closer against her, making a soft noise in the back of his throat she told herself was part of the act, though it could not have reached any ears but her own. Beneath her breath she mumbled, mouth kept busy with constant refrain of _please let this work, please let this work_. It didn't stop Loki from brushing his lips against hers but did help her keep her head enough to shift away, despite everything else in her reaching traitorously toward him. 

After an eternity and a half the coast cleared, and Sif got both feet beneath her again. They crept warily out of the alley, and hobbled the rest of the way to a main road in a silence that had grown tense by the time they managed to hail a cab. Now that it seemed less and less likely they were about to be brutally gunned down things were becoming uncomfortably real, from the blistering ache in her arm to the ringing in her ears to the sick guilt settling in the pit of her stomach.

Loki began to give the driver the name of a nearby hospital but Sif cut him off, "No, I am going to the hotel."

"Sif, we need to see a doctor."

"This is nothing I cannot handle myself. I want to go _home_."

"To Thor."

The way Loki's tone curdled on his brother's name made it easier. "Yes," she snapped, "To Thor. He needs to know what happened."

Loki sat back against the seat and said nothing, jaw set.

"He deserves to know he's in danger," Sif added, hoping to make him see sense, "Whoever those men are we've put their targets on our backs and likely his as well. Since our run here is finished anyway we ought to discuss moving on."

"Very well." 

Loki's tone made clear he had no wish to discuss the matter and Sif let it drop, head lolling back against the seat as the taxi whisked them through town. They didn't speak in the elevator, Sif's eyes half-closed against the bright lights, ignoring the curious eyes of the bell boy. He unlocked the door to their suite and Thor, playing with a complicated set of shackles, tossed them aside and surged up from the couch when he saw them. 

"Sif! Loki! What happened? You're bleeding! Sit down, sit down, should I call for a doctor? What on earth!?" He stopped short of picking them up and carrying them to the couch but hovered all the way, kneeling at Sif's feet to untie the makeshift bandage around her arm. He poured them each a drink and rattled about acquiring clean cloths and antiseptic, helping Sif clean and dress her wound before she tended to Loki's. Both were about as minor as gunshots can be, standard fare that she made quick work of as Loki related the broad strokes story of their evening. 

Sif chimed in but rarely, and once his leg was bandaged she excused herself to take a bath, though not before Thor caught her up in a huge but careful embrace, which she returned with one arm, leaning against his broad chest as he ruffled her hair. Thor paced the sitting room as Loki finished with Sif's warning and suggestion that they move along to the next city.

Thor responded with a thoughtful sort of noise delivered into his scotch, stopping at the side board to pour another finger or two into his tumbler. "I want to thank you, Loki," he said, "I would never say she is the sort of woman to require protecting, but it eases my mind to know that you were there at her side in this." He set a hand on Loki's shoulder, smile subdued but warm, "Truly, thank you. And let's speak further on that question in the morning. Perhaps we ought to head on. I can't say I've any particular desire to remain, especially under the circumstances." He shrugged. "But in the meantime, I am going to go see that my wife doesn't fall asleep in the bath. Good night, brother. Sleep well."

Loki lifted his glass in response, and hoped Thor took it as a toast when he drained the rest of the liquor down in a single gulp.


End file.
